Frank Fuller Fowle

Frank Fuller Fowle was a pioneer in the long-distance transmission of telephone and electricity. In 1901, he made a special study of telephone and electric lines sharing the same utility poles, and devised a general system of transposition to overcome inductive disturbance. Transposition is the periodic exchanging of the conductor positions in a transmission line according to a calculated pattern. In wired telephone transmission lines, transposition reduced crosstalk. Transposition of three-phase alternating current power lines is extremely important for balancing the capacitance of the transmission system. Transposition also equalizes the impedance of the conductors relative to ground, thus avoiding one-sided loads in three-phase electric power systems.

Fowle was born on 29 November 1877 in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. He attended Boston public schools and graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (SB in EE in the terminology of the time)